China cries foul on US economic espionage report

In response to a US intelligence report to Congress' claim that China is a " …

This morning, the Chinese government responded to a US intelligence report to Congress on economic espionage, calling its charges that China engages in the electronic theft of sensitive technology and business data "irresponsible," and saying that it wants to help in curtailing cyber-crime.

The report in question, published by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive yesterday, found that China was the largest source of attacks on US businesses, and accused Chinese intelligence of being a "persistent collector" of data stolen from US companies. But the authors of the report took pains to acknowledge that the intelligence community could not precisely attribute cyberattacks on US companies to any specific entity.

Reuters reports that at a press briefing in Beijing today, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei dismissed the findings of the report and said that the Chinese government has offered assistance in the past to stop the attacks. "Online attacks are notable for spanning national borders and being anonymous. Identifying the attackers without carrying out a comprehensive investigation and making inferences about the attackers is both unprofessional and irresponsible," Hong said, in response to a question about the report. "I hope the international community can abandon prejudice and work hard with China to maintain online security."

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own with cheaper quality and components that are hazardous to even touch.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

Not really. That and they want to "help" just like they want to "protect" the freedom of expression of their people...

Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own with cheaper quality and components that are hazardous to even touch.

T,FTFY

Then break/fall down, derail, blow up and kill several hundred people. And then have a coverup I I mean investigation that indicates the accident was due to operator error, not due to shoddy construction work or engineering.

Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

Money. They has it. We wants it. Iran no has it. So which ones we rail against?

What's the difference between a bad copy of a mobile phone and a bad copy of chinese food?PF Chang is the equivalent of an iPhoon.

Why is anyone surprised? Do you think the US does not conduct espionage against China?Countries that are not explicitly allies will spy on one another. I imagine that allies will spy on one another, too.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own with cheaper quality and components that are hazardous to even touch.

T,FTFY

Chynuh is also the saem plays were tehy weel bi won uv an eye Tim and then reenigne it back two the copmonent nuts and bolts and then benig May King their on wit soup eerier quality and copmonents that are saef two eat!

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

...Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Reverse engineering is probably one of the proudest types of engineering there is, and is protected by law. Lots of advances have been made because an engineer reverse engineered a product, noted what was good about it, and then added some additional item that was a patentable advance.

Industrial espionage on the other hand...

The US should at least see what China had in mind for work on cyber security.

Also, I remember reading on this fora somewhere that China has the highest amount of botnetted computers in the world, making them perfect to launch an attack from. I still believe that a large portion of attacks from China are sponsored or at least known by their government, though, but there it is possible that not ALL attacks are being made by the evil psuedo-capitalist communists.

Lol...it doesn't take the NSA to figure out the Chinese government is sponsoring hackers to break into US systems. It's the clandestine equivalent of the 50 cent brigade (google it if you don't know what that means).

Sure they want to stop Hacker I completely believe this. The devil is in the details though. The Hackers they want to stop are those within their borders that would steal Chinese secrets IP and technology. Those that would steal others secrets would be tolerated and rewarded handsomely.

If other reports are to be believed then China has been and is involved in substantial systematic foreign espionage launched from within the target nations and from within China. Google and others are hardly likely to get upset as they did in 2010 without good cause. The smoking gun was defintiely there but there were also bigger issues at stake. There is no doubt the same espionage arguments are true of other nations against China however the scale of those attacks would seem to be much smaller.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

Not really. That and they want to "help" just like they want to "protect" the freedom of expression of their people...

Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

I think you answered your own question. Iran might get nukes, China has hundreds of them and can turn the US into a series of radioactive craters connected by a world class interstate system at any time. Some level of subtlety is probably a good long term survival trait.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

Not really. That and they want to "help" just like they want to "protect" the freedom of expression of their people...

Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

I think you answered your own question. Iran might get nukes, China has hundreds of them and can turn the US into a series of radioactive craters connected by a world class interstate system at any time. Some level of subtlety is probably a good long term survival trait.

Mutually Assured Destruction™ means China cannot leverage that fire power in any way, shape or form. They also have a HUGE delivery gap™ . God I missed the cold war!

Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

Lol...it doesn't take the NSA to figure out the Chinese government is sponsoring hackers to break into US systems. It's the clandestine equivalent of the 50 cent brigade (google it if you don't know what that means).

They can't deny the obvious, although if companies are stupid enough to host sensitive information in the net they deserve to have that information stolen. Nothing in the internet is completely secure.

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

Not really. That and they want to "help" just like they want to "protect" the freedom of expression of their people...

Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

They can't deny the obvious, although if companies are stupid enough to host sensitive information in the net they deserve to have that information stolen. Nothing in the internet is completely secure.

Nothing anywhere is completely secure. Does that mean everyone deserves to be robbed? Maybe the USA "deserved" 9/11 because it wasn't secure enough? I hope you see how unhelpful such an attitude is.

Lol...it doesn't take the NSA to figure out the Chinese government is sponsoring hackers to break into US systems. It's the clandestine equivalent of the 50 cent brigade (google it if you don't know what that means).

Why trust the American government's word over China's?

Because the American government doesn't lie every time it opens its mouth? It only does so half the time. ;-)

Are we entirely surprised?Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

I think you answered your own question. Iran might get nukes, China has hundreds of them and can turn the US into a series of radioactive craters connected by a world class interstate system at any time. Some level of subtlety is probably a good long term survival trait.

He did answer his own question. The US preys on the weak, or at least some administrations do. The Evil Empire includes North Korea, but a land war there would be horrifically expensive, and that's in terms of lives, not money. Probably both, actually.

So what did GW Bush do? Avoided the country that would be difficult to defeat, and invaded the country he knew the US could steamroll.

We were taught this principle in school. When you only pick fights with the weak, you're a bully.

What's the difference between a bad copy of a mobile phone and a bad copy of chinese food?PF Chang is the equivalent of an iPhoon.

Why is anyone surprised? Do you think the US does not conduct espionage against China?Countries that are not explicitly allies will spy on one another. I imagine that allies will spy on one another, too.

The problem with your trolling is that China never had anything worth stealing or copying in the first place. But never mind that, you're kicking the issue sideways when the concern should be that China is doing as an entire country and that there's no moral or ethical idealism in place in that country that makes it a "bad thing".

China is also the same place where they will buy one of an item and then reverse engineer it back to the component nuts and bolts and then start making their own.

Not really. That and they want to "help" just like they want to "protect" the freedom of expression of their people...

Honestly, I don't understand why the US government plays hardball with places like Iran but play games with China even though China is far more dangerous. Considerably less crazy leadership but that methodical intelligence is part of what makes them more dangerous.

Iran is an irritation that can't fight back in any meaningful way. China is an irritation that can turn a significant portion of NATO into an interestingly-patterned sheet of glass.

Mutually Assured Destruction™ means China cannot leverage that fire power in any way, shape or form. They also have a HUGE delivery gap™ . God I missed the cold war!

We should have listened to MacArthur back in the 50s...

Wrong. China has people everywhere. If they really, honestly wanted to wipe us out, they could smuggle the damned bombs in by vehicle and nuke the cities using locals.

There is absolutely no need for missiles, subs or bombers. And in this scenario, who do you retaliate against?

"Dear sub captain, all major cities and most of our ground-based nuclear silos just disappeared, we have no idea who did it. NUKE CHINA!"

"..."

If you still think the cold war is the way future wars will be fought – or even that the principles that underlie it are still valid – then I have some news for you. Spies and saboteurs will always be ahead of the curve, and we’re ~30 years beyond the heart of the cold war now.

China has the tech, they have a loyal spy network. They have the nukes, they have the people; they have the everything. We’re no different. We could turn China into a sheet of glass without ever firing a single missile.

Are you daft? Have you been living in a cave all this time? Or maybe just an offended person of Chinese descent? It's COMMON KNOWLEDGE by practically the entire world that China engages in this wholesale and you can just Google "Chinese counterfeit/Chinese hacking/Chinese compromise, et cetera" and then any other country of your choice to make comparisons to what's out there (don't expect to pull up results from Chinese sources as they probably have been groomed well by their government) In any event, you can look it up in WikiLeaks or any of your favorite data dump site to find such evidence.

Here's a non-government example. There was an incident in NYC (near Brooklyn I think) where two "Vietnamese sandwich" (aka Bánh mì) shops opened up just a block from the original Vietnamese cafe with the EXACT SAME MENU WORD FOR WORD, PICTURE FOR PICTURE and same decor and similar interior. Both of these were run by Chinese immigrants that used to work for the Vietnamese cafe. I can go on and on with examples if you want.

The problem is that they don't think there is anything wrong with doing so and that's because in China the government practically encourages this.

Mutually Assured Destruction™ means China cannot leverage that fire power in any way, shape or form. They also have a HUGE delivery gap™ . God I missed the cold war!

We should have listened to MacArthur back in the 50s...

Wrong. China has people everywhere. If they really, honestly wanted to wipe us out, they could smuggle the damned bombs in by vehicle and nuke the cities using locals.

There is absolutely no need for missiles, subs or bombers. And in this scenario, who do you retaliate against?

"Dear sub captain, all major cities and most of our ground-based nuclear silos just disappeared, we have no idea who did it. NUKE CHINA!"

"..."

If you still think the cold war is the way future wars will be fought – or even that the principles that underlie it are still valid – then I have some news for you. Spies and saboteurs will always be ahead of the curve, and we’re ~30 years beyond the heart of the cold war now.

China has the tech, they have a loyal spy network. They have the nukes, they have the people; they have the everything. We’re no different. We could turn China into a sheet of glass without ever firing a single missile.

Welcome to the 21st century.

You've been watching too much Jericho dude. Smuggling the material for a nuke, because building the hardware is the easy part, is harder then you think. If you don't think there are monitor stations in every major city in the US and detectors that sweep every ship that comes into the US, and every entrance point....think again. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if there are sats that are sensitive enough to pick up radiation coming off plutonium. The US is paranoid, and rightly so, of a loan wolf with a briefcase nuke. Screw China. Its not a dozen nukes you need to be worried about. That would be picked up on someone's radar somewhere. I don't care why kind of sleeper cells China has here. Moving that much material into place would attract attention.Its that one nutcase who got his hands on material from North Korea or eventually Iran and backpacked it in through the boundary waters canoe area across open borders, and hundreds of miles, is the concern.

PS- Joy and with one post I'm betting I'm now on some watch list somewhere. =P

You've been watching too much Jericho dude. Smuggling the material for a nuke, because building the hardware is the easy part, is harder then you think. If you don't think there are monitor stations in every major city in the US and detectors that sweep every ship that comes into the US, and every entrance point....think again. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if there are sats that are sensitive enough to pick up radiation coming off plutonium. The US is paranoid, and rightly so, of a loan wolf with a briefcase nuke. Screw China. Its not a dozen nukes you need to be worried about. That would be picked up on someone's radar somewhere. I don't care why kind of sleeper cells China has here. Moving that much material into place would attract attention.Its that one nutcase who got his hands on material from North Korea or eventually Iran and backpacked it in through the boundary waters canoe area across open borders, and hundreds of miles, is the concern.

PS- Joy and with one post I'm betting I'm now on some watch list somewhere. =P

I disagree entirely. The lone nutter will get caught. he doesn't have the resources to hide the rad signature, nor the network to hit all targets at the same time. A large state entity has the resources to plan, test, retest, test some more and then do it all over again. They can build devices to hid the radiation output of fissile materiel...or even smuggle in equipment capable of refining materiel in situ.

(There's gobs of Uranium in Saskatchewan, get some folk to dig a buttload of ore up, refine it elsewhere, "backpack it in."

I happen to know for a fact that it would go entirely without notice. All the old mines around Uranium city are inactive, there is zero military or police presence, and *hundreds* of rare earths prospecting companies hauling tones of materiel out of the region every year.

And this is just the first method off the top of my head. A state actor like China has the resources, the personnel, the knowledge and the espionage network to find a way if they really wanted to.

And no, I haven't watched Jericho. But maybe now I should...

Edit: please explain to the class the physics that allows you to track small amounts of fissile material from orbit. Because that sounds awesome. I have never heard of a detection device - or even the theory of operation behind one - that would allow you to look for a shielded lump of U235 through an atmosphere from 120km up and not pick up the emissions of every coal power plant - and most heavy industry - as false positives. False positives whose signatures cover most of North America.

Methinks that either I have missed some massive leaps in technological development, or you are the one watching too much TV.

No, the reason the hasn't happened yet is probably very simple: the Chinese are human beings. They have morals, sympathy, compassion and a desire to be able to sleep at night. They don't want to kill us all unless there is absolutely no other choice.

Sociopaths exist, but I cannot believe that there are so many, placed in all the right government positions, and recruited into sleeper cells by the hundreds, that they could bring themselves to commit that atrocity. I do not believe it.

Most cases of large scale atrocity in human history involved some pretty damed complex group dynamics. It required decades of dehumanising the enemy. It took charismatic leaders and charismatic lieutennanta to rally the troops and never let them question what they were doing.

Coordinating an effort like this would take thousands of individuals, all who would have a lot of time to think about it. If a nuke attack by land were to fail, it would not be because they got caught...but rather because they remembered tbat we are all human.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.